As business models go, this takes some beating. Charge people for stuff that doesn’t exist, then sue them when they don’t pay.

Thankfully this week a court put an end to the money-grubbing enterprise of Baron Deschauer – Baron is his first name, he’s ­definitely not noble.

His targets were hundreds of small investors who bought plots of greenbelt land on the understanding the value would rocket when the sites got planning ­permission for housing. That hasn’t happened and the land is pretty much worthless.

Beginning around 2001, about 2,700 people were persuaded to pay from £10,000 to £30,000 for plots at sites in Kent, East Sussex, ­Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Surrey and Nottinghamshire.

Selling the sites became more difficult for Deschauer after the ­Department for Business petitioned the High Court to have two of his companies put into compulsory liquidation, citing “objectionable” and “misleading” sales tactics.

The 48-year-old from Canada denied any wrongdoing and, in a compromise, the companies - Lakeview Developments Limited and Broomfield Developments Limited - were put into ­creditors voluntary liquidation.

He then changed tactics from selling land at vastly above the market rate to extracting annual fees from the buyers, who were told that the covenants they had signed meant that they had to pay for the upkeep of roads and other facilities on the sites.

That’s despite the fact that not so much as a paving slab has been laid and planning permission for any sort of development has not even been applied for, yet alone granted.

The fields are nothing more than that, fields that are farmed for hay.

Enforcing those charges began in earnest in 2017 through another Deschauer company, Terracorp Limited.

It began suing investors on an industrial scale, trying to enforce charges that would, if successful, net him an estimated £450,000 a year.

A number of the cases of investors who refused to pay came before His Honour Judge Johns QC in the County Court at Central London.

Royal Courts of Justice (Image: Getty Images)

In his judgment handed down this week he states: “It became clear that there were many more such claims proceeding in this court and at various other hearing centres.”

The cases were consolidated into one hearing of 174 defendants and this week’s judgment makes clear what the judge thought of ­Terracorp’s charges.

“Costs cannot be incurred on cleaning, maintenance or renewal until the roads and other features exist,” he ruled in dismissing ­Terracorp’s claim.

“It would be a surprising ­conclusion, commercially speaking, that the parties intended to agree a liability to make an annual payment for the maintenance of roads that do not exist.

“Moreover, the planning position was that such roads would almost certainly not exist for generations.”

Gill Malouf, Kusum Thanki and Rita Mistry of the Land Banking Victim's Association

The result is a huge relief for the plot owners – Deschauer had told the court that he was prepared to use bailiffs to enforce any court judgments that he won.

“We are delighted to have been successful in our defence of payment of covenant charges,” said Kusum Thanki of the Land Banking Victims Association after the hearing.

“We are in the process of reclaiming charges that have been paid which should not have been.

“We hope that this landmark case will serve as a deterrent in the future for such claims and will encourage all victims of this land-banking scheme to challenge payment.

“We await formal notice of an appeal from the claimant.”

The court also considered the question of whether misrepresentation was used when selling the land to potential investors.

Common sense would suggest that it must have been. As Helen Swaffield, for the defendants, put it: "Why else would anybody buy a plot of valueless land without any possibility of planning?”

A string of witnesses told the court that they felt duped. Typical was family doctor Jagdish Chavda from Leigh on Sea, Essex, who bought two plots near Reigate, Surrey, for £57,000 and has paid more than £1,000 in covenant fees.

He said the sales rep “certainly did not warn us that there would be any doubt or risk in obtaining planning permission”, and “failed to tell us that the location was in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and that there were current planning restrictions.”

Another, airline supply manager Mohammad Chaudhry who bought three plots for £25,250 each, said in a witness statement: “Planning permission was described in terms that made it sound like a mere formality."

A third, Yash Pal Gogna bouht five plots with his family and said: "I had been the victim of a fraudulent landbanking scheme. We were told lies and believed the lies."

But the judge ruled that misrepresentation had not been proven.

The problem for the investors was that they had nothing in writing to prove their version of events and were relying of recollections of sales pitches dating back in some cases 18 years.

The judge ruled: "Were the plot purchases told that residential planning permission would be obtained, and in the space of a few years?

"I have no doubt that each of them believe that is what they were told. They were honest and confident in their recollection. However, that is not necessarily a reliable guide to what was in fact said.

"On weighing the evidence I have reached the conclusion that no such certainty was communicated by the agents as to planning, whether in the short term or otherwise.

"Rather, the purchasers formed a view from the borchure and the interest shown in the plots that planning permission would soon follow."

Sales agents "put a positive spin on the possibility of residential development" but "they did not say that planning permission would be obtained."

He accepted that there was "obvious anger of purchasers at having been lured into these investments" particularly when kept in the dark about the reality of getting planning permission, but concluded: "I am in the end unable to accept that evidence".